Swan Song
by Obsidian Buterfly
Summary: 'There, she poured out her words of grief, tearfully, in faint tones, in harmony with sadness, just as the swan sings once, in dying, its own funeral song.' I wish my song could be heard before I die. Warning: AU, character deaths
1. Sleepless Nights

_**A/N: Just a little something I wrote a while back. It was supposed to be an original fiction but then I got it into my head that I wanted to make it a fan-fic as well so yeah, here it is. I hope you enjoy it even though the chapters are not going be longer than a thousand words at most. But it's already finished so the updates will be regular. ;)**_

It's night now. Almost everyone has gone off to bed, yet I'm still awake, rendered unable to sleep, plagued by insomnia. But it's not such a big surprise, really, considering the amount of medication I am on just to continue on with this pathetic little existence of mine. I would be more surprised if I actually did fall asleep.

No one is really sure what year, month or even what day it is anymore. The sky is always a murky shade of gray, smog having blocked out the sunlight long before I was even born. The plants have all died, leaving the earth naked and barren. The water is contaminated and undrinkable, polluted and a dirty brown thanks to all the toxins that have destroyed all forms of life outside of these protective shelters we live in.

I pause in typing out on my personal palmtop for a brief moment to gaze outside my window. It has started to rain. The acidic droplets crash against the windowpane, causing the shield protecting this building to hiss and sputter as it gets eroded away little by little. Whenever the weather grows dry, people have to head outside to reinforce the shield generators so that it may hold out against the next rainfall.

I look over to my right to see my younger siblings sleeping together, huddled into one another to stay warm in the cold of the night. The temperature inside the building is always kept low to stave off decay and prohibit the growth of bacteria. We can't afford bacterial contamination on top of the inorganic one we've got going right outside the shields. I reach out with one hand and play with their messy hair for a while, feeling the coarse dirt-matted locks between the pads of my forefinger and my thumb. Tomoyo grumbles something in her sleep before turning her back to me and I turn my attention back to the small computer lying in my lap.

I begin to retype, trying to ignore the chill creeping into my bones. I can't feel my feet anymore. I don't think the medicine is working anymore. I try to wiggle my toes but I can't really see if they're moving or not in the dark room 'cause I sure as hell can't feel them. I know I don't have a lot of days left now. I wonder what Eriol will say in the morning when I'll refuse to get out of bed. Probably go running for old man Clow, the caretaker in-charge of this building's invalids. Eriol hates it when I use that term, but even so… that is all that I am now. Clow is not actually the care-taker for the invalids. He is actually in-charge of the entire building but he set up one floor of the building as a medical bay and set up an entire series of rooms dedicated especially to the invalids. Since no one really wants to get infected by the ones staying there- even though there's vaccinations to prevent people from getting infected by the invalids- Clow took it upon himself to take care of them. Of course me and his grandson helped out quite a lot. And then there were Tomoyo and Eriol, young and un-experienced but they insisted on joining us in this ward whenever we had a patient there.

The thunder rumbles across the sky and I feel my rickety old bed vibrate. Unbidden, a shudder crawls up my spine and I feel something like a bug-larva slither across my leg. For a fraction of a second, I wish I could climb into the same bed as Eriol and Tomoyo and snuggle up to them for comfort. But I run the risk of contaminating them at such close proximity. Even now, just to sleep in the same room as me, they have to take about a dozen different vaccinations.

And to think, it all began because I was too stupid to listen to Clow and went out looking for the _legendary_ cure supposedly growing out in the wastelands so that we could help get rid of the invalidity in a contaminated person.

If only… if only I had not gone down in that pit… then maybe… I would not have damaged my suit against the protruding remains of that crumbling building, and maybe… maybe I would not have been contaminated by those toxins. I can't believe it has only been two days and I'm already so sick that I can't even get out of bed without some sort of support. I gaze out of my window again and see a faint, golden glow across the horizon. And in that glow, I see shadows moving. I shake my head and look away. Hallucinations are not supposed to set in until much later… there is no way any living creature can survive in an environment this hostile. But… I bite my lip as my gaze automatically strays to the window… I was sure I saw _him_ outside.


	2. Sad Truth

It wasn't always this way… I've heard tales from Clow about the time when he was a kid. He says the sky used to be blue. And the sun… a big yellow blazing ball in the sky… it used to shine across the lands. It's hard to believe, though… he used to tell us about the grass that covered the land in endless pastures and the trees and the crystal clear pools of pure water and the birds and insects and… and so many other wonderful things. The only water we have available here that is not contaminated is that which we keep on recycling. Despite the fact that it's broken down into hydrogen and oxygen and then recombined to produce pure water… it still has this strange, metallic tang to it.

Clow once took me to this far away shelter hidden cleverly somewhere in the wastelands where he has this room that is full of all sorts of wonderful, amazing and rather frightening objects from the world that was before the catastrophe. Before the war… there, I got to taste un-recycled water for the first time. Oh how wonderful it tasted. So sweet. So fresh. So… pure and untainted. That was when Clow told me about the oceans too. About how the water was a dark, dark blue, yet it was pure and there were fish and birds and oh, so many wondrous sea creature residing in it. He also showed me a flower! It was all dry and brown and very, very brittle with no fragrance at all, but to me… it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Clow said that it was a pressed cherry blossom.

My parents died before I was even old enough to remember who they were. Clow found me out in the wastelands, held in the arms of my dead mother, wailing my little lungs out. He says he doesn't know the name that my parents might have given me, since my father never really made it either. Their tanks had run out of oxygen before they could actually reach the shelter. From the suits they had worn when Clow had found them… he says they must have come from one of the other shelters that had a shield failure almost two decades back. Or so he says. There is no real way to keep time around here, but Clow insists it has been that long. So that means I am almost two decades old now. Two decades old, and already dying. But it's not that much of a surprise. Most don't even make it past their first decade now. I'm lucky to have survived for as long as I have. But maybe I say this because I have always helped around with Clow at the invalids' part of the building.

I've seen more death than most people living here at the shelter. I've seen people lose hope, I've seen people break, I've seen people go insane with grief and… I've seen people die. I wonder if I would go insane too? Before I die I mean. I know there's no way left for me to live for long but… will I succumb to hopelessness and break? Or would I panic and lose my mind? Both seem like sad ways to go but I wonder if I would be strong enough to keep it together to face what's to come next. An unfortunate side to having worked with invalids for so long is that heartbreaking realization that I know exactly what I still have to go through.


	3. Sense of Loss

It's funny how I know all about the effects those toxins are going to have on my body and how and when it will affect which part of it. Let me give you a crash course in the effect these toxins have on the human body and what happens until the body expires…

Within the first few hours of being infected, the victim begins to experience uncontrollable chills, followed by a dangerously high temperature. The lucky ones die off at this point. The unlucky ones live on to see the second day, where the fever and the chills recede but the pain begins to set in. It's the worse feeling in the world, almost like the insides of your bones are being drilled out and filled with boiling acids. The victims normally end up damaging their voice boxes from screaming themselves hoarse and are thus unable to speak for the remainder of their short life if they do somehow survive the second day. The third day is when the coughs begin, making it harder to breath as a constant weight presses upon their chest, squeezing the air out of their lungs. By the time the third day is half over, paralysis and insomnia begins to set in, although I personally believe insomnia is a result of the medication they give you to ease your pain and help you breathe easier. The paralysis begins from one part of your body and slowly spreads towards your heart and lungs. It'd be a relief if one died because they went into cardiac arrest or something, because what comes next is even worse. What's worse than paralysis and being left a mute, you say?

Sensory loss. The victim's hearing begins to go away first. A few hours later…their eyesight begins to fail. And then, finally, as the paralysis begins to take complete hold of their body, even their sense of touch fails them. No one lasts for more than a couple of hours after that.

It's my third day today. I have already suffered from the hellish fever and the frigid chills and the burning pain in my bones. I also can no longer speak. I wish I could, though. I always loved to sing and Tomoyo and Eriol always begged for me to sing them to sleep. I really wish I could do that now. Opening my mouth, I try to speak the words of an old song I remember someone singing to me once when I was little. I like to think it was my mother that sang it to me as she held me right before she died. No sound originates from my lips, though, so disappointed I close it once again.

I wonder how long _he _had lasted because I know he's dead now. The one that I risked my life to find the cure for. He'd gotten infected a few days before me, wandering through the ruins of that abandoned city, searching for only god knows what. I had not been able to bear the sound of him screaming himself hoarse because of the pain as the toxin slowly started destroying his body from inside out. They had all told me there was nothing that anyone could have done for him at that point. But I had refused to listen. The cure of legends… It had to exist somewhere out there, I had argued with them all. Even _him._ Of course, soon after that argument, I had stolen a suit and gone out in search of that cure, managing to get myself infected in the process.

Tomoyo and Eriol had been the ones to find me and bring me back just as I had been the one to find _him_ and bring him back only a few days earlier. Clow had not let me see him again, even though I had begged and cried and even tried to physically haul myself to the room _he_ had been in. Before the feverish haze had consumed me, only one thought had crossed my mind.

He was gone.


	4. Something Wild

_**A/N: And in this chapter you finally get to learn the names of the narrator though I'm pretty sure you might have already figured it out by now, just pretend to be surprised alright? ;) And feel free to leave a review once you're done. I'd love to hear your thoughts about it.**_

He was a few years older than me, with mischievous eyes that were so brown and kind and lovely. And he had such a heartwarming grin that it would alleviate all your sorrows and make you feel on top of the world. And his dark, earthy hair was always messy and unkempt and it gave him the look of a Wildman, but then again, it's not like we were any more sophisticated than he. He was everything to me… He was Clow's grandson, Syaoran. Clow said that was Chinese for Little Wolf. We've never seen wolves but I think if Syaoran were to be one, he'd be the best wolf there ever was. Clow said wolves are supposed to be very brave and loyal and he was that and a lot more.

Sakura… that's what everyone calls me. Clow says it means 'Cherry Blossom' in a language that has long since been forgotten. He says when he saw me for the first time in my mother's arms, I reminded him of that fragile flower. I'm not really sure why I would remind him of something so beautiful when I'm the exact opposite. I've got dull, green eyes that resemble the moss that grows around in places in the basement. And hair that's not pale enough to be considered blond but not dark enough to be brown either. I keep it short because that way it's easier to manage.

Tomoyo and Eriol were orphans just like me, brought back by Syaoran and me when we found them wandering out in the wasteland alone and lost and almost dying. Thankfully, they had not been infected. They were almost a decade old, and although they say they don't remember how they ended up outside, I have a vague suspicion they were thrown out of their previous shelter when the sources grew too scarce there. It is not unheard of. In fact, it is a common practice in almost all shelters to turn out the orphans and the dying ones to conserve food and water for the ones that are still living. Clow is one of the few caretakers who instead of turning away the ones that are weak or dying, gives them proper care and medication to make their lives a bit easier as they die. If I had been in any other shelter, I'd have been dead by now, perhaps pushed out of the shelter on the very first day of my contamination.

They took to me and Syaoran soon after they got here, insisting on helping us whenever we left the safety of our shelter to go outside and hunt for salvageables and scraps and anything that could be used to help keep the shelter running. Most of the time, we'd manage to bring back nothing more than eroded metal but sometimes we'd get lucky and manage to find something that had somehow been sheltered from the acid. The few men that knew how to make machines work would then try and get our discoveries to function so that they may be used in some way to keep us alive another day.

Food is another thing that we used to go out in search for. Of course, with the rain and the contaminated land and the polluted air, nothing could have grown naturally but the dispensers always managed to use the scraps that we collected to create something edible for us to consume. It never tasted like much but it was all that we had to stay alive. The dispensers worked on pretty much the same principle as the recyclers, breaking down the components of their raw materials into the most basic of forms before recombining them into organic compounds fit for consumption. I heard some of the shelters broke down the bodies of their contaminated once they were dead to produce food but that's too sickening to even consider around here.

Medicine is for the infected is produced in pretty much the same manner as the food though now that I think about it, I don't understand why Clow even bothers with something like that. It does nothing but prolong the agony of the ones that are infected. There _is_ no miracle cure out there to insure our survival so why bother trying stretching out the period we live? Wouldn't it have been better if they were to just leave us outside to die quickly? I can't really say much about that sort of death being painless because then I'd be lying but still… having to sit in bed, and count down the hours before the paralysis stopped our heart or the sensory loss drove us insane or the toxins proved too much and shut down our body was just so…

If only one of them could hear my thoughts right about now, I'm sure I'd have gotten an earful from Eriol and Tomoyo, a disapproving frown from Clow and from Syaoran… I'm not so sure anymore. After all, he's already gone through this hell.


	5. Silent

Lightning illuminates the room for a split second and I jerk my head to the left to see outside. The rain still continues falling from the sky, hissing and spluttering and raising poisonous fumes that begin to glow when they react with the toxins in the air. For a fraction of a second, I can't help but think how beautiful it is. Deadly, but beautiful in its own morbid way.

Feeling somewhat thirsty, I set aside my computer and crawl across my bed to try and reach the single small bottle of recycled water that is placed on my side table without waking up either of my adoptive siblings, but sadly I can't quite reach it and end up crashing painfully to the floor, upsetting not only the bedside table but my bed as well. Eriol and Tomoyo wake up with startled cries, looking around wildly for a brief moment before spotting my crumpled form on the floor as lightning flashes outside my window.

Crying out my name, they both rush to my side, Eriol supporting me up off the ground as Tomoyo rights the bed. When I reach for the bottle of water now lying on the floor again, Eriol picks it up and hands it to me, scolding me for not waking him up because I was thirsty. He's still half a decade younger than me, but he's scolding me like_ I'm_ a child. I can't help but laugh at that, a quiet, soundless chuckle escaping my lips as I open the bottle and quench my thirst. Tomoyo picks up my fallen computer which still has the document containing my musings open, but I thankfully manage to snatch it away from her before she can read what I wrote. She asks me what it is but I merely shake my head, clutching it close to my chest until they both go back to sleep, telling me to _wake_ either of them up instead of scaring them to death when I need something. I only nod in response as they fall back asleep.


	6. Syaoran

I rest back against the headboard, turning my gaze to stare out of the window once again at the falling rain and for a short while, I can see Syaoran, walking out there in the rain. Soundlessly calling out his name, I reach out for him, my fingers crashing into the windowpane. I see him begin to walk away. I call out his name again but no sound escapes my lips. I try again and again, tears trailing down my cheeks as I uselessly try to call him to me. I don't even notice it when someone grabs my hand and turns my face towards them. I spot Tomoyo's crying face in my field of vision. She is saying something to me and it is with a jolt of fear that I realize… I can't hear her… I close my eyes in defeat as the truth dawns upon me. I have less than a day left to live. I wonder if Syaoran lived long enough to go through this stage as well. Did he ever find out what I ended up doing for him?

Someone is shaking me… I jolt back into awareness only to find old man Clow standing before me. His old, wrinkled face is etched with sadness and loss. He just had to deal with the death of his grandson only two days ago, and now… he's watching another one he loved as his own child waste away before his very eyes. Clow steps out of my line of vision and I feel my breath catch in my throat at the person standing before me. Or rather… the person seated before me.

There, right before me… weak and pale and almost dying, but still very much alive… Syaoran sits in a wheelchair. Tears well up in my eyes as I reach out for him. I can see the pain in his eyes as he holds my hand but I'm too happy to care. He's still here with me. It takes a moment for my brain to process that the hand in my fingers feels far too warm and far too solid to be a hallucination and something tells me… something tells me that he forced Clow to put him into stasis for a few days for some reason.

After the great war, when the Earth grew far too hostile for human habitation, the rich populace of the planet booked themselves stasis pods aboard space vessels dubbed Explorers that set out to journey to far off distant planets located in other galaxies hundreds of light years away that could still sustain life. It was only the poor and the prisoners of war that were left behind to die here.

Coming out of stasis for a contaminated person is extremely painful, so I can only wonder over whatever made him want to prolong his death in such a masochistic manner. Even though I cannot hear, I can still feel the vibrations in my rickety bed as something heavy is set beside me. I turn my head to the right to see another bed laid in conjunction to mine. I look questioningly towards Clow and Eriol, who only shake their heads and help Syaoran to lie down on the newly laid bed. I can't help but smile despite my bleak situation when Syaoran reaches out and catches hold of my hand again.

Clow lays his hand on my head for a while, slowly patting my hair until I started getting drowsy. Syaoran squeezes my hand gently… or perhaps weakly… I look over at him but I can tell… he is losing his sight…. It won't be long before the same happens to me as well… We're both going to die today. But the fact that he's still here with me… I can't help but feel this warmth spread out through my whole body. Maybe… he feels the same way about me?

_**A/N: This is the answer to a question 'silver orchidz' asked in a review last chapter. I never actually planned on making this world sound like Acid Tokyo from TRC but now that you mention it, I suppose she **_**could**_** be taken as the Sakura in the OVA if you feel like it. To be completely honest though, the resemblance wasn't intentional. Hope that answered your question.**_

_**Leave a review and tell me what you think guys because Syaoran is not dead… yet! ^_^;**_


	7. Slowly Staring

The paralysis has spread to my lower abdomen in the night. I can tell that my contamination is worse than most cases because of the rapid way my condition was deteriorating. I feel so weak all of a sudden. And exhausted. But I am afraid to close my eyes. The next time I open them… I might not be able to see anyone at all. I search the room for Tomoyo and Eriol and find them both sitting on the floor a little ways away from me. They're both crying, holding onto each other. I wish they wouldn't cry like that. It's not like my death will lead to the end of the world, will it?

People die all the time. But I guess this is the first time two of the people they've held very close to them -ever since their parents died- are dying in such a… cruel way.

I don't know how long it has been now, but slowly everything is becoming blurry, getting darker around the edges. I open my eyes as wide as I can, taking in their faces for what I know will be the last time. Pretty little Tomoyo with her hair dark as the night and pale purple eyes, and brave-hearted Eriol with hair an exotic color of blackish-blue and eyes the murkiest of shade of blue. I look above me and find Clow still lovingly stroking my hair though there are tears in his eyes. Finally, I turn my head towards him… Syaoran, with his skin pale and waxy but I can easily remember it being a soft, creamy brown. I stare and stare and stare at him until I can stare no more, my world growing dark as the sound has already been shut off sometime last night.

Even though I can't hear, I still know somehow that Clow would be telling Tomoyo and Eriol that I have just lost my vision now. I'm in complete isolation from the world, save for my sense of touch… but even that won't stay with me for long. Clow hates telling the loved ones of the invalids under his care about the decline in their physical condition but as a caretaker, that unfortunate duty falls solely on his shoulders. I feel one of them take my other hand, since I'm still clutching on to Syaoran with my right one. I wonder if he can still feel my fingers wrapped around his own. I wonder if Eriol and Tomoyo think the same about me. I squeeze back the hand holding mine to let them know that yes, I can.

I always used to wonder if their last moments were painless… the people who died like this. Now I know that while there _is_ no physical pain… there is still this pain that lingers on, the pain of knowing what their loved ones are going through because of them. Little by little, I begin to lose feeling in my upper limbs, it starts with the fingers of my hand but I can feel it spreading until I can no longer tell whether someone is holding on to my hand or if I'm holding on to Syaoran…

I know I haven't let go, though. I… I know I haven't. I wish I could still tell if they were all here. If he was still here. I feel so scared all of a sudden. I would cry if I could, but I doubt I can anymore. Even the tear glands in my eyes have been affected by the toxins attacking my body. I acted so bravely for their sakes as long as I could, never even trying to think about feeling afraid of my looming death, but now? Now that I am completely alone… I can't help but feel terrified. I don't want to die. I… I don't want to leave them all behind. Clow, Eriol, Tomoyo… I want to stay with them. I… I want to live.

_**A/N: Only one more chapter to go~ What do you guys think of it so far? Click on the button below and leave a review ^_~**_


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